About Me

Saturday, December 10, 2005

asparagus

It was a bright afternoon and my favorite wife and I were waiting in the car line at North Augusta Middle School to pick up our granddaughter. We had arrived early because we were already in the neighborhood and decided to wait for her and save her Mom a trip. We were in casual conversation when I posed a question to her – I wonder if asparagus could be used as a verb?

She got that sly little smile on her face that told me that I come up with weird stuff but she was glad she married me anyway. Her answer was that of course it couldn’t. Loving a challenge, I proceeded to spin a scenario to illustrate my belief that it could. It went something like this.

It was a dark and stormy night and a large group of young folks had gathered in the old mansion on the hill outside of town for a Sunday school party. The house belonged to one of their grandparents and was not a spooky place at all – under normal conditions.

They had just gathered when the rain started coming down in torrents, the wind blowing it in near horizontal sheets. The lightning was so bright that it almost looked like a fireworks display and the accompanying thunder was nearly as loud as the bass of a rock band. Then at the very height of the full fury of the storm, the power went off. A couple of them scurried around trying to find candles while the rest were huddled together at one end of the great hall.

It was then that everyone heard the tremendous crash. At first they thought it was just a loud peal of thunder, but the light of the next lightning flash revealed that something else was in the center of this large room. Suddenly they panicked and all ran toward the door, not caring whether or not they got soaked. As they bolted out the large double doors they screamed, “we’ve been asparagus-ed”!

My wife’s smile remained and in all seriousness she said, “there’s no way that could happen”. Again I felt the thrill of the challenge and continued the rather unlikely scenario.

It seems that there was a large cargo plane carrying produce from California to a very influential buyer on the east coast and it got caught in this very same bad storm. They didn’t have time to get out of this dangerous maelstrom - that made Mother Nature seem like a maenad – and were trying to ride it out.

The plane suddenly hit a downdraft and dropped 500 feet and tilted sideways. The sudden jolt as it regained stability caused a whole pallet load of asparagus to break loose and slam against the large side door. This was too much for the door’s latches and it sprang open, dumping the large container of asparagus out into thin air.

Gravity being what it is, this large mass went downward at the speed of - - well, gravity (?). The first solid thing the asparagus hit was the roof of the mansion and this was the crash the young people heard. They were somewhat shaken, but when an extended flash of lightning revealed the words on the side of the large crate – “asparagus from California” – it was more than they could take and they all ran for their lives.

When I finished my wild story, the smile still remained on my wife’s face, but she didn’t have a lot to say. It was probably a good thing I’m not a mind reader. In the strictest sense I suppose nobody actually got asparagus-ed, since none of the product came in bodily contact with anyone, but that is the way it could happen.

Joy is a “for real” verb and I joy myself in the Lord on a regular basis. This is in addition to written and verbal joyous expressions – even about everyday, mundane, even silly, things. Of course this action form of the word is also a choice and we have the option of being an old grump, but this dark side of the force just doesn’t happen to be my choice – most of the time. ec

This is taken from some smarty-pants website ( http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/gravityspeed.html ) so there you go!

Your writing so inspires me to remain joyous in the Lord. I so admire the relationship you have with your "favorite" wife, and I pray that my hubby-darling and I have the same kind of marriage when we're, um, a little older.